Chinese Lamp

By the mid 14th
century, during the Ming dynasty, Jingdezhen had Imperial patronage and
was the most important centre in China for the production of porcelain.
In fact, the only place in the world that could produce porcelain! The
“secret” of blue and white is cobalt, a natural mineral ore, which was
then confined to Persia, today’s modern Iran. Persia, or rather, Kashan,
located near Tehran, held a monopoly on the valuable cobalt which was
mined in the low hills surrounding Kashan.

The Persians used cobalt for the decoration of white, tin glazed
earthenware and, in fact, Kashan was an important centre for the
manufacture and distribution of ceramics throughout the Middle East.
Here, we are speaking of a 9th and 10th century world, totally
unrecognizable to us today with our instant everything and with every
part of the world, just hours away! At this time trade between countries
was slow, dangerous and arduous, a trading caravan, typically taking a
year for the round trip.

Trading caravans from Persia first introduced the Chinese to Persian
cobalt; soon to be know in China as “Persian Blue”, the cobalt ore
ground to a fine dark blue to black powder. Chinese potters were excited
and thrilled with this new product and trading began in earnest with
bolts of pure silk exchanged for small packets of Persian Blue.

It was at this period that ceramic decorators were experimenting,
especially with the firing techniques, as the cobalt could be unstable
with the effect of over or under firing which is one of the reasons that
this very early class of Chinese blue and white painting is sketchy
with the blue being washy and rather pale.

Chinese porcelain is “hard paste” porcelain, the term really refers to
the “hard fire” or, high temperature, requiring kilns capable of raising
temperatures up to 1250° C / 2300° F in order for the porcelain to
vitrify with the hard, white, translucent result we call porcelain.
Because of the high level kiln failure, expense and labour required,
porcelain at this time was so rare that it was only produced for
important commissions from the Imperial court or high ranking members of
the aristocracy.